Ask and Ye Shall Receive
by K Hanna Korossy
Summary: Form and Void tag (a few weeks later): Sam, looking for information about Amara, discovers something else altogether. Dean is not impressed.


**Ask and Ye Shall Receive**  
**K Hanna Korossy**

He heard Dean's footsteps in the hallway, and noticed again there was no catch or drag to them. Cas had finally been well enough to heal the rest of Dean's injuries from the _nachzerer_ but it had taken a few days, and Sam had gotten used to Dean's pained shuffle. They were back in hunting shape.

Well, two of them were.

"How's your baby doing?" Sam asked over his shoulder as Dean walked into the kitchen.

"Pretty good. Finally got her all cleaned out inside." Dean had done the major repairs at Bobby's before they came home, getting the Impala road-worthy again, but the tweaks and cleaning and polishing he'd left until they were back at the bunker. "Should be ready to take out tomorrow." He opened the fridge. "Hey, we got any of that meatloaf left?"

"Yeah," Sam said, idly shuffling through the stack of papers he'd brought back from Bobby's storage. "Uh, top shelf. Saved you a piece."

"Awesome, thanks."

Another minute, and Dean was plunking himself down at the kitchen table opposite Sam, a hefty meatloaf sandwich on his plate. His first bite prompted an indecent sound of appreciation, and Sam hid a smile.

"Seriously, we need to find out what Wilbur puts in his meatloaf. You should ask Clarissa."

Sam looked up, frowning. "Me? Why don't _you_ ask Clarissa?" Dean ate at the diner as much as he did.

"She likes you," Dean said around a mouth full of food. Off Sam's expression, he rolled his eyes. "C'mon, don't tell me you didn't notice. You have Clarissa at the diner, and I've got Marta at the post office." He gave Sam what he probably thought was a charming grin.

Sam blinked at him. "Dude, they're both old enough to be our grandmothers."

"So?"

Sam shook his head. "Whatever, man." He went back to his papers.

Dean swallowed his bite and took a sip of beer before nodding at Sam's stack. "Nothing about Amara in there, is there?"

"Not that I can find." Sam glanced at his sleeping laptop screen. "But I haven't come across any more 'black plague' breakouts, either."

"Hmm. Well, maybe baby-Darkness needs time to grow her powers or something."

"Yeah, maybe." Sam sighed, tossing his pen down and rubbing his eyes with both hands. When he dropped them, Dean was watching him thoughtfully, so Sam stood and went to refill his coffee mug.

"Hey, tell me somethin'," Dean spoke up behind him. "How'd you figure out how to cure the plague? You never said."

He hadn't? Then again, Sam had only just told Dean during the last hunt that he'd gotten the plague at all. "Oh. Uh." Sam added a splash of the latest creamer Dean had gotten him—it was Crème Brulee this week, Dean trying to find something too sweet and unusual for him to like but failing utterly, as Sam had loved them all—and returned to the bench seat. Mug between his hands, he shrugged. "Actually, it was something Billie said."

"Billie." Dean swallowed his bite. "Billie the Reaper, that Billie? She helped you out?"

"Well, I don't know if she was trying to help—probably not. But she said mentioned being 'biblically unclean,' and when I looked it up online, I came across this website that talked about holy oil and purification."

"Huh. Maybe there's something there we can use against Amara? Pull it up again."

Sam sipped at his coffee and brought the laptop to life. That wasn't a bad idea, actually. If she really was Darkness, then light and fire and purification might be the way to stop her. He typed in one search, didn't find what he was looking for, tried another. Nope. What had he searched then? Sam tried a third term.

"What's the matter?" Dean was licking his fingers off post-sandwich, and Sam absently snagged a napkin out of the holder and threw it at him.

"That's weird—I can't find the site. It was one of the first ones that came up before."

"Maybe you're not looking for the right thing?"

"No, it was one of these terms, I'm sure of it." Sam had tried every variation of _unclean, purification, the Bible_, and even _holy oil,_ but besides the Bible verses he'd found last time, the site wasn't coming up, the one that had given him the inspiration. "Huh. I don't get it."

"What's not to get?" Dean wiped his mouth and tossed the napkin onto his plate. "Websites disappear all the time. We'll find another one."

"Yeah, but…" Sam sat back, revelation dawning. "I asked for help," he said slowly.

"What?" Dean paused, beer bottle halfway to his mouth.

"At the hospital. I went to the chapel and I prayed."

"Yeah, you said that. Doesn't mean—"

"And then I found this site, this site that's _not_ _there anymore_, that talked about purifying the unclean not just with fire, but _holy oil _fire. Which you happened to leave me with the weapons." And he'd never seen holy oil mentioned online before; Cas had told them about it.

"Sam—" Dean was getting that pained look he got whenever Sam started talking about faith and God.

Right. This wasn't the time. Sam quickly shook his head. "No, you're right. It probably just got taken down."

Dean stared at him with narrowed eyes a moment, then abruptly stood, shaking his head. "I'm gonna make some brownies." He went to the refrigerator to pull out milk and eggs.

There _were_ possible explanations. Websites did often vanish from one day to the next. If Cas knew about holy oil, then maybe others did, too. And Dean had left Sam every possible weapon he might need.

But the two of them were the only ones who'd walked away from that hospital. The only ones who'd figured it out. How many times had they been the only ones?

"You want chocolate chips in the brownies?" Dean asked from the counter.

"Sure."

Sam watched him work, denial and distraction in every line of his brother's body, and was surprised by a deep rush of love. This was the guy who'd killed Death for him. Who'd given up closing Hell for him. Who'd brought him back from the dead. Who was still alive and relatively whole and there with Sam despite any measure of logic or odds…because there was no way Sam could've gone on without him.

No matter what Dean said, what he had to believe to get through the day, there was only one way any of this made sense. If Dean didn't have faith in it, Sam would just have to have it for him.

His mouth curled up. "Can you throw some raisins in, too?"

Dean looked back at him with disgust. "Dude, raisins are just wannabe chocolate chips. Ew. No."

Sam gave him an unabashedly little brother look.

Dean fought it for a moment, then heaved an aggrieved sigh before going back to work. "Fine, I'll put raisins in _half _the pan. I'm not ruinin' the whole thing for you."

Sam just smiled softly at his back.

So very grateful.

**The End**


End file.
